Dennis the Menace and his Krispy Kreme caperThe Republican Primary in Arkansas has seen quite a reversal since the last time there were statewide races for constitutional officers. In 2010, Republicans did not even field a full slate for all seven positions. Now almost will have a Republican primary. One has quickly devolved into a rather strange primary race pitting Saline County Circuit Clerk Dennis Milligan against state Rep. Duncan Baird for state treasurer. It’s now centered on a 2...

Remembering that day 50 years agoFifty years ago this Friday I was a freshman journalism major at Arkansas State College, working as a part-time sports writer for the Jonesboro Evening Sun. Since it was an afternoon newspaper then, my duties included reporting to work at 6:30 a.m. — quite a challenge for an 18-year-old — and working two or three hours until time for class. By the time I left the old offices at Church Street and Washington Avenue that day, I had finished my ma...

The French wayReaders of The New York Times must have been confused the other day when the paper ran an article titled “Under Strain, France Examines Its Safety Net.” Because the Times is ultra-liberal on its editorial page — pretty much advocating every entitlement possible — the hard news story seemed somewhat out of place. It chronicled the enormous benefits that French citizens receive. Paid child care, free higher education, free health care, a mandato...

Michelle Obama: Beyond the bicepsJust as President Barack Obama is striking out over health care reform, Michelle Obama is stepping up to the plate with her own experience. How glad I am to see her voice truly emerge from her carefully rehearsed public persona. The vegetable garden, military families, healthy eating and childhood obesity — sorry, but that set of issues seemed almost too safe and poll-tested. Five years after the 2008 election, the first lady is sharing more f...

Hot Springs ParkHot Springs, a small city located in the Zigzag mountains — a range within the larger Ouachita Mountains — is home to numerous hot springs that emerge on the west side of Hot Springs mountain. Rain soaks through the ground cover, continuing downward through chert and novaculite, dissolving minerals as it goes and becoming increasingly hot as it sinks deeper into the earth. Geologists say the water’s journey lasts about 4,000 years before it em...

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Meredith Martin-MoatsThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

Decades of work reaps firefighters’ memorialIt’s a crisp November afternoon, and construction workers are finishing the Arkansas Fallen Firefighters’ Memorial behind the Capitol. Johnny Reep is there, too, talking to crane operators, describing the memorial, and remembering what it took to get to this point. Reep, a 30-year veteran of the Little Rock Fire Department, started working on the project in 1994, nine years after the idea was born. In 2000, he became chairman of what — $1.3 mi...

Arkansas’ new promiseLITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Department of Education recently received a $32 million federal research grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This award, known as the PROMISE grant, was created to help teenagers with disabilities who receive Supplemental Security Income. The PROMISE program strives to help SSI-qualified children ages 14-16 graduate from high school, college and job-training programs. This will give them a better chance to b...

Analysis: Is LRSD gambling with funding?LITTLE ROCK — Like any lawyer engaged in settlement talks, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel tries to get the best possible deal by casting the other side’s position in the worst possible light. If he’s right, the Little Rock School District could be taking a big gamble by withholding full approval of a deal that would end years of extra state payments to boost desegregation. If he is wrong, the district’s gamble could be worth it. As it has be...

‘Baby Angel’ holds dear memoriesAutumn has always been a transitional season for me. As a child, I saw it as the time when the carefree days of summer changed to conform with the structure and requirements of school. The same held true through college and graduate school. During the years that I was working in corporate finance, fall was the time to finalize plans and budgets for the coming year. As a mother, I see fall, once again, as a time to transition back to school and...

Real winners are problem solversIn today’s culture there is a tremendous emphasis placed on winning, regardless of whether it’s in the boardroom, on the football field or betting at the racetrack. It has been my observation this emphasis in recent years has been getting stronger primarily because of one word — money. A good example is the evolving nature of high school sports. Regardless of the sport, players are getting bigger, stronger and faster — and even meaner in some ...

Expect anything; be prepared for everythingI shot a cop last month. Actually, I shot two. It’s OK, though. Seriously. It was part of the 2013 Citizen’s Police Academy, hosted by the Russellville Police Department. For the past several weeks, I’ve attended the academy and learned a little bit more about what, why and how our local officers do what they do. During the final class, we learned about high-risk situations. Officers gave us a crash-course in searching a building when you have...

More needed on parole’s front lineMaybe state employees should be paid based on how much they’ll be missed when they miss a single day of work. In other words, an agency can go a long time without an official director, but it matters a lot when a foster care caseworker is absent even for a day. If that’s so, the caseworker ought to be the one making the big bucks, not the agency director. I’m not taking credit for this concept. Doyle Webb, now the head of the Republican Party ...

Geography a factor in 2nd District raceRepublican Tim Griffin’s announcement last month that he will not seek a third term as 2nd District congressman created a bit of a scramble in central Arkansas as both parties prepare to campaign for the soon-to-be open seat. Geography of the district is an important factor. A former columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau once described the district as “Little Rock surrounded by Oklahoma.” The description fits. While Little Rock has remained a...

Parole system gets new scrutinyLITTLE ROCK (AP) — The case of a parolee who managed to avoid being locked up before he allegedly killed a man in Little Rock this year is putting new pressure on a parole system that has bedeviled Democratic and Republican governors alike in Arkansas. It’s a problem that won’t be easy — or cheap — to solve. The Arkansas State Police investigation released last week regarding the case of Darrell Dennis, an eight-time parole absconder arrested ...

Agent recalls Kennedy assassination Most of us who lived through 1963 can tell you exactly where we were and what we were doing on Nov. 22 when we heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. That memory ranks as a signal moment in any lifetime. Clint Hill’s memory is more vivid than that of almost anyone alive, and it has troubled him deeply. As a Secret Service agent assigned to protect first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Hill was only a few yards away from the pre...

A life that made a big differenceWe never fully understand the impact our lives can have on those around us. The life and ministry of Johnny Jackson — a Southern Baptist minister in Arkansas — was a major influence on mine. I had the privilege of attending a memorial service for Brother Johnny last week at First Baptist Church in Maumelle. The service was a celebration of a life spent serving others. Brother Johnny was pastor of many churches in Arkansas and spent his last fe...

Making a case for literacyThere is a verse in the Bible I have come to appreciate more and more as time goes by. In Proverbs 3:27 it says, “Withhold not good to them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thy hand to do it.” With this in mind, I would like to tell you about one of the greatest needs we have in our nation today — fighting the battle of illiteracy. In our modern technological society, a person does not have a prayer if he or she cannot read. Yet w...

Timing not right for RankinFor months, Beth Anne Rankin wrestled with whether or not to run, again, for Congress, even though she had lost twice before. In the end, she said no. “It’s just hard to let go,” she said in an interview Tuesday between informing supporters of her decision. She later explained, “I just didn’t think it was the right time for me to run again.” I should disclose that Beth Anne — I mean, Rankin — and I have known each other since we attended Ouach...

State prisons reach capacity, causing ripple effect in jailsCounty jails are beginning to fill up in many parts of Arkansas, a logical consequence of the Arkansas Department of Correction reaching its capacity for housing inmates. State news organizations reported on Oct. 25 that the state prison system had reached a record of 14,343 inmates that week — 106.4 percent of capacity for men and 107.2 percent of capacity for women. At the time another 2,144 prisoners were in county jails waiting for beds to...

When public service was honorableIn November 1960, I cast my first presidential vote for John F Kennedy. But because I was in the middle of 13 weeks of Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., that fall, I had to vote by absentee ballot. Parris Island recruits were prohibited from reading newspapers, listening to radio or watching TV. So I did not find out that Kennedy had defeated Richard Nixon until the Thursday after the election when my Marine drill instructor, a wh...